Sunday 29th September 2024 marks a special date in the East of England’s screen history.
It was on this date, sixty years ago, that BBC Look East was first broadcast!
Look East is the BBC’s regional news programme for the East of England. It shares news and stories from across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and parts of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It is produced and broadcast from BBC East, based at The Forum in Norwich.
We are proud to hold some of the BBC East collection in our vaults here at the East Anglian Film Archive, including many of the news stories that have been shown on Look East through the decades.
In this article, we look back on the history of Look East and celebrate 60 years of the programme.
The early days of regional television
In the 1950s, television became increasingly important as a means to record events and share news, and in 1959 regional television properly arrived in East Anglia.
The BBC had already established some facilities in St Catherine’s Close in Norwich, and in the autumn of that year began to broadcast a local news bulletin for Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Ely. Watch the opening of the television studio >
The news bulletin began in 1959 as a ten-minute programme each evening. In 1962 it was extended to twenty minutes in length, and went through various name changes. It wasn’t until September 1964 that it relaunched as Look East.
A still image from Cat. 5560 "A Day in the Life of Look East", 1983, showing the work behind the scenes on the programme. © BBC East, 1983.
News gathering across the region
Many skilled people contributed to Look East over the years. In Films Were Made, Vol. 1, David Cleveland, who founded the East Anglian Film Archive, lists the news anchors, camera operators and reporters who worked on the programme.
David Cleveland notes that it was no small feat to produce the nightly news bulletins, with the running order of each programme often changing right up until the last possible moment. He writes:
“Film from all parts of the region had to be got back to Norwich by car or train, processed, edited, timed and assembled in the evening’s film transmission roll.”
Cleveland continues with a breakdown of Look East programme number 3539, which was broadcast on Tuesday 3rd April, 1979, and details the great amount of skilled work involved in producing just half an hour of news.
A still image from Cat. 5560 "A Day in the Life of Look East", 1983, showing the work behind the scenes on the programme. © BBC East, 1983.
Changing times and technology
In the 1950s and 1960s, BBC East conducted its filming on black and white, 16mm film. In the very early days many recordings were silent, but soon crews adopted film with magnetic sound, which recorded sound down one side of the film stock.
The programme was shown fully in colour for the first time in the early 1970s.
Film was used until the mid 1980s, when BBC East adopted video tape.
Then, in 2003, BBC East moved from its home at St Catherine’s Close to a new facility in The Forum in central Norwich. At this time, the corporation made the transition to working primarily in digital formats, although its rich collections of film and tape continue to be held in the East Anglian Film Archive.
A still image from Cat. 5560 "A Day in the Life of Look East", 1983, showing the work behind the scenes on the programme. © BBC East, 1983.
Look East today
Today, Look East continues to celebrate the stories and people of the East of England. In the run-up to the 60th anniversary, Look East will include archive footage looking back on some of the major stories and innovations that have shaped the programme.
This includes archive footage from “A Day in the Life of Look East”, a documentary made in 1983 that shows the work behind the scenes. The documentary has been preserved by the East Anglian Film Archive and you can view it on our website.
You can watch the celebratory coverage on Look East on BBC1 and on BBC iPlayer.
Sources
David Cleveland, Films Were Made: A look at films and film makers in the East of England 1896-1996. Volume 1: The Region at Work. Published in 2009. This and David’s other books about the film history of East Anglia are available from Local East Anglian Books.
Cat. 5560, “A Day in the Life of Look East, 1983”.
BBC Look East – Wikipedia. Retrieved 27/09/2024.
Header image: A still image from Cat. 5560 “A Day in the Life of Look East”, 1983, showing the work behind the scenes on the programme. © BBC East, 1983.
This article was amended on 02/10/2024.
